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Do a JoB—Harvey tHe litiGator
firm’s number, got the operator, and was connected with Ambrose’s sec- retary, who told me that he was not there. Sensing my panic, she advised that I speak with Gerry Walpin, whom I did reach. It was good advice. Walpin told me that I should approach the bench when the second call ended and say, “Application, Your Honor,” when the judge called on me. Other attorneys would be making applications as well. I would not be alone.
I wasn’t. There were about twenty lawyers who had rushed up and bunched around the bench making their own applications as soon as second call ended. I decided to hang back and get the lay of the land, and it was a good thing that I did. One by one, the lawyers, all of whom seemed to be veterans, would approach the bench, say “Application”— and then proceed to get their heads ripped off. The obviously tired and irritable little white-haired man in the black robe who was seated behind the elevated desk continually scowled and made each of them misera- ble. His only goal was to inveigh against tardiness and shoddy over-litigating in his court and to make sure that everyone knew that, by God, lawyers who wasted his time would not be tolerated. This would not be fun.
And then he turned to me with a look that seemed to say, “And what the hell do you want, kid?”
So the moot court champion had to speak. What to do? I decided to fall back on what I had learned in competition. After all, what else did I know? Nobody else had spoken the way we were taught to in moot court, and everyone else had had a very rough time of it. So I would try to be formal, deferential, and clear, and hope for the best. “May it please the Court,” I found myself saying, “I am Harvey Yaverbaum of Rosenman Colin Kaye Petschek Freund & Emil, Your Honor. We represent Our Slightly More Important and Clearly in the Right Client, Incorporated. I understand that Unimportant and Badly Intentioned Corporation, Inc., has responded to our motion, number 87 on Your Honor’s calendar, and we wish the Court’s leave for an adjournment to put in reply papers. Unfortunately, we are constrained to make application for that purpose, as we were unable to appear when our case was called.”
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